After the current plot runs its course my Acolytes in my Dark Heresy game will be taking a short trip on a Raider-class vessel dropping them off at a Hive World. This trip will only take one session to play, and is meant to be kind of a breather, a good place for the characters to unwind and hopefully do a bit of Roleplaying (which is like pulling teeth, I tell you). The ship is one that is a part of our Rogue Trader game, so it's kind of a cameo.

So I find myself in need of enough interesting things to happen during the trip to keep everyone interested.

I have a few of the basics down, like 'state dinner with the Captain and senior staff' spending evening drinking in the Officer's Cantina, and just being bored in their cabin. Along with encounters with an interesting NPC for each Acolyte, like the horrible mutated Navigator for the Sororitas, The Veteran Armsman for the Arbitrator, and so on.

So I call upon the minds of the Rogue Trader board, what neat/interesting/cool non-combat events can you think up?

How about an Agatha Christie style murder mystery? Although the murder itself is violent, you don't tend to have much actual violence in one of her stories, the murderer, when caught, usually restricts himself to bitter and hollow gloating before turning themselves in.

As the players are being shuttled around in someone else's ship, you could use almost any number of her plots: murder on the orient express springs to mind. You've got the same themes: enclosed space, lack of external interference...

Shipboard romance with a fellow passenger - the rich Guilders daughter perhaps?

Warp visions/events. Nothing to shoot, but potentially scary

Calming down people panicking when a shipboard crisis occurs (i.e. Gellar Field fluctuations)

I can also offer my Silver Dawn adventure (look in Dark Reign) BUT that does resolve with combat.

SJE

How about.....

A space battle?

A lot of violence but nothing the Acolyte can do to influence things. He is just one of those inside the ship with no clue waht is happening. But the ship shakes and recoils, sirens go of, air is streaming from the compartment. People get hurt as part of the hull collapses, and a fire breaks out in the compartment that they are in. Can they extinguish the fire making sure it does not spread, helping the wounded and trapped and making itout before they all suffocate from bad air?

And then at the end of the night, a splendid party where the Captain says that this was just a small skirmish and the vessel they are in sustained no samage of meaning (say 1 Hullpoint and only a few hundred dead people). It is one thing to stand on the bridge and hear the reports, another thing to be part of those figures.

Hi there!

How about someone breaking into their cabin while they are at the mess for launch? Either the captain can give them an "Board Enforcer" with them or they can "Bribe" an Enforcer to take the case and take them along.

With an Enforcer backing them onboard, they can strole around & ask question. Little investigation thing with no violence.

I guess it depends on how dedicated the Acolytes are to their task, but a "plague of madness" on board the ship could be a lot of fun during the Warp journey. It would look to Acolytes like Heresy breaking out on board all over the ship - something in all good conscience they would have to investigate. The paranoia as they start to suspect everyone around them could be very intense although this may lead to combat and the team barricaded in their quarters if they are a little trigger happy.

You could just cave to the inevitable and give them a really fun warp incursion though

Hrud Infestation (they are on a lot of ships as feral scavengers). Doesn't have to be a combat mission. Players could ID areas and help evac crew so the sections can be vented to space. And while they are busy doing that they discover something about the ship that needs to be repaired that impresses the captain or other passengers.

Passengers on board that will debark at the next port or planet. Have one of them get romantically involved with a player and show up in a later adventure as an important npc.

Example

The passenger could simply be a wealthy Hiver travelling to see family or going on a jaunt to a hunting preserve. Or...they could be one of an Inquisitor's retinue travelling on business disguised as a Hiver on a hunting trip. Possibilities are endless.

I like the ideas here!

Perhaps you could also try a simple theft of some of the gear and they have to track down the theif? Into the bowels of the ship - amongst the protein fungas Vats or the refuse recycling plants...

There's always a Friendly Ghilliam Hunt (think Fox hunt only in confined spaces) - the one with the heaviest catch wins?

How about a power failure ?

One day the power to the pc's cabin goes out . . . no cold drinks, no hot water, no entertainment system, just a small flickering red emergency light.

Ship maintenance promise to restore power ASAP, but they still take their time.

Instead of sitting around in their dark cabin, the pc's spend an enjoyable evening drinking and gambling/whatever in the officer's cantina.

When the pc's reurn to their cabin it's still without power, but 1 hour after they go to sleep, the door opens with a woosh and in rolls alarge tracked servitor with a flashlight strapped to the side of the head, and what looks like a gun in one hand and a flamer in the other !!!!

( it is, of course, a repair servitor with a drill and welding equipment, but to fatigued/drunk/hungover pc's in the dark it is a lot scarier . . . a fear test might be required )

If the pc's control themselves the servitor ( noisily ! ) restores power to the cabin, but if they panic and start a fight the servitor will defend itself with blowtorches, nail/rivet guns, pneumatic hammers and any other powertools you can imagine.

Another encounter could be:

Blind passengers/stowaways. They have a heartbreaking sob story explaining why they sneaked aboard, but is it true, or are they up to something ?

Following a successful execution of an endeavour and reaping the rewards the explorers come the rescue of a small freighter/transport...

The crew of which claim to be bounty hunters escorting a fugitive back to the Calixis Sector who is wanted by the Magistratum/Ordo Calixis in relation to a series of incidents, not least of which is murder of several agents of the Inquisition and the Imperium. This fugitive is as the bounty hunters claim is dangerous and ruthless.

However not everything is as cut and dry, when gradually the explorers learn otherwise from evidence acquired and the bounty hunters later turn up dead.

Eventually the explorers uncover a plot to 'snuff' the fugitive, who was a loyal acolyte of an inquisitor within the Ordo Calixis, who had been betrayed by his peers and has with-held information within the advanced cogitator implant inside his/her head, as well as having uncovered the betrayal at the hands of several of his former brother-acolytes in the process of being censured, formerly imprisoned on maximum security penal colonies only to escape, and survived several attempts on his/her life.

But what do the Explorers do?

Will they attempt to claim the lucrative bounty?

Will they assist in finding the evidence to **** his radical peers - as well as prove his innocence?

Romance in a RT game, a soft and sweet chapter in a galaxy of madness. just wait for the into the storm release, add an ork or kroot pc in the crew or mix it a bit. then you add the pc romance interactions and throw an inquisitor into the mix and let the mayhem ensue.

personally you can play it out depending on the groups style of play, i'd just do the interspeices mix ups, inquisitorial presence and mayby a demonic incrusion to get a few laughs out of the game. In the 40k universe there is never a dull moment.

good luck with your sessions

A growing death cult to the emperor in the bowels of the ship.

The PCs come across a bloodied and dieing crewman who has escaped this death cult who were attempting to sacrifice him to the engines for greater speed.

Before the PCs can react to much the Armsmen catch up the the crewman and take him into "custody", with a promise to report on to the powers. Suffice to say the captain either knows nothing or is keeping quiet about it.

Strange noises of chanting, and perhaps something more insideous interrupts the PCs sleep - the Geller Field failed for a very small period of time.

The cult gets more bloody, and eventually attempt to capture one of the PCs (or one of their flunkies). Further investigation discovers the small break of the geller field has allowed a demon to take host in the cult leader, and now intends to bring more destruction to the ship, and the first step is removing the pesky inquisitorial passengers.

Void_onion213 said:

Magnus, our Arbitrator had a fling with one of the senior Armsman. ANd now I have to figure out how to have him show up elsewhere now that the ship they were on has delivered them and moved on.

Spook said: